Capitol Reef Side Trip

On the 21st we took a day trip to Capitol Reef along rt 12 a Scenic Byway of Utah. Much of it winds through Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument along with some National Forests. Quite pretty territory all around. Panorama from viewpoint on Rt 12 overlooking Escalante. Capitol Reef was mostly a scenic drive, including two dirt road / washes you could drive all the way down. The farther one Capitol Gorge was quite interesting, especially in a Ford Focus. The petroglyphs were also interesting. I didn't hike at all in Capitol Reef due to tiny little flies (and a newly scratched up shin from a slide at an overlook, the back of me knee hurt, so I decided to leave it alone.) This was only our first encounter with these little beasts. The next day we discovered them infesting all the campsites at Arches too. And the little buggers bite hard. We consequently spent a lot of time in Moab during the day. I have a few hundred more images to work through.

Heading back to Vegas

We're driving 7 plus hours today to enjoy Vegas for one day.

Last of Bryce

We got up at dawn the last day.

20th Hike

Images from a torturous 8 mile Fairyland Loop from the 20th.

The little buggers making the amazingly irritating clicking noise.

I'm gonna go lazy on description now.

Two Posts in One Day

Bryce Canyon's Visitor Center has free Wi-fi. These are all from today's hike, the queens garden trail combined with the Navajo Loop, the other end of which with Wall Street is closed.

Utah From Thursday

We left Zion Thursday morning and took the scenic route to Bryce. We stoped off at Kolob Canyons, the northern part of Zion and drove to the end of the scenic drive. We hiked the short trail there. Collared Lizard from Zion Kolob Canyons. After that it was highway for a while, then we turned and drove uphill to see Cedar Breaks. Which was slightly disappointing. There is still snow on the ground, so it isn't even really spring there yet. The views were okay, but Bryce is better. Cedar Breaks. We were going to visit Navajo Lake too, but got lazy and went straight to Bryce.

Zion Wednesday

The climb that finally stopped me in Hidden Canyon.

My cousin^ who keeps talking me into these scary hikes.

We got lazy yesterday so just hung around the campsite. Wednesday we hiked to hidden canyon, which was very nice. That's where most of the above pics came from.

Zion to yesterday

A basic Zion view. On day one we hiked to all the Emerald Pools, which are totally worth the hike. Little lizards and damselflies abound. The pools are full of tadpoles and water striders. Personable lizard from Emerald Pools Trail. We also walked up to the Weeping Rock but it wasn't very impressive right now. Early in the morning the next day we scaled Angel's Landing. Actually i wimped out at Scout's Lookout and waited for my cousin to climb and come back from the Landing. Scout's Lookout has magnificent enough views for me. But watch out for the pushy chipmunks. The starter climb for Angel's Landing. I found Walters Wiggle to be easy compared to those first switchbacks. Pasted Panorama view from Scout's Lookout. Chipmunk looking for handout. Rattlesnake we saw on the way down from Angel's Landing. Checkerboard Mesa. Ripples. Utah Sandstone. One of my big goals was to find canyon treefrogs. On the overly long jaunt to the showers (I totally recommend the Zion Ponderosa Ranch showers, even if it is a solid 2 hours there and back from the campground) we stopped at all the lookouts on the Mount-Carmel highway. At one we could hear the sheep noise the frogs make when they call. After a slight scramble we found a pool with 5 frogs in it. Four were calling and one was just trying to stay away from the other 4. Some of the scramble. Calling male. Possible Female. This one kept trying to escape the others. Weird little (maybe 1/4 inch long) beetles from the campsites. Today we went to Hidden canyon and did the Riverside Walk. The narrows are currently closed, so we probably won't get to hike in there at all before we have to leave. Tomorrow morning we're going to try for Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.